What Would Jesus Twitter?

Jesus on Twitter

Have you ever thought how Jesus would communicate with his followers if he was alive today. Would he be MySpacing his apostles, befriending his Facebook buds in Galilee, or posting his travel itinerary on Tripit and LinkedIn? Kidd Millennium thinks he might follow in the footsteps of His Holiness, the Dalia Lama who purportedly registered for  a Twitter account recently under the moniker OHHDL (Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama) with the address of http://twitter.com/OHHDL.

For those less enlightened, Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send text message updates (aka tweets) up to 140 characters long) via the Twitter website or mobile phone text messaging.Launched in August 2006, the Twitter service claims more than six million users of its service.

On February 6, 2009. explaining the 73-year-old’s decision to join the microblogging site,his first auspicious post announced: “His Holiness thought it was prudent to make his office open and assessable to a more youth and technologically advancing audience.” Another Tweet read: “I’m sure HH will be just as inquisitive about technology as he has been over the past 14 reincarnations.”

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The feed attracted nearly 20,000 followers within 48 hours of launching, under the Tibetan spiritual leader’s name.

But as karma would have it, Twitter was not meant for enlightenment. In a bold move. the top brass at Twitter suspended the account after evidence surfaced that the person behind it was an imposter and had no connection to the Nobel Peace Prize winner.”The account was suspended the following Monday, February 9 because it violated our Terms of Use regarding impersonation,” noted Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

And while the imposter is today without a job, from all intents and purposes, he did appear to be well intentioned. Whenever he would tweet his followers, it was generally with either a link to a pertinent page on the official Dalia Lama website or a gracious thank you for whatever suggestion had been given. The person was fake but the responses were genuine and helpful.

Strangely enough, the appearance and disappearance of the OHHDL account underscored a major tenet of the Buddhist faith. One of the essential doctrines of Buddhism is “impermanence”. The word expresses the notion that everything we can experience through our senses is in flux, constantly changing, and ceasing to be—nothing is permanent. One day you are a twitterer and the next day, you are asked to leave the premises.

Other reported fake twitter accounts are numerous. Kanye West dissed Stephen Colbert last year on Twitter. Then we found out it wasn’t Kanye after all. A White House Twitter account, which had been updated during the Bush years and then switched to Obama right after the inauguration, also turned out to be bogus.

Well, Jesus, you’ve now got the facts. If, in your second coming, you want to quickly attract a mutlitude of followers in a couple of days, I suggest you join the twitterati and give Twitter a big thumbs up! However, you will not be able to claim the user name “God”, as of February 16, 2009, that handle has already been reserved by another impostor who appears to have assembled a following of 6.284 tweeps.

Flickr Tags: Dalai Lama,Twitter,Facebook,kidd millennium,Ron Callari,LinkedIn,Tripit